Everything you want to know about cycling in London

Cast your mind back to the first day you started cycling in the city. Don’t worry this isn’t a therapy class where I now start to ask you “how did it make you feel?”. I’d charge for that kind of service and you’d probably want to demand your money back. If you started cycling 50 years ago or even just 3 months ago I’m sure you’ve learnt a lot. Whether that be through observing (Read: stalking) other cyclists, bugging your impatient local bike shop or reading incredible cycling blogs (such as London Cyclist). Or perhaps it was through making errors. The day your bike was stolen or the day you bumped into that parked BMW and made off before anyone realised (perhaps that’s just me? Let’s move on..)

Once your romance with cycling has begun you’ll want to learn more about it. That’s because you know the more you discover the more enjoyment you can get out of it. Whether that be going on your first big 70 mile ride, turning your commute into a workout or learning the speed benefits of being clipped into the pedals. You either still have a lot to discover or you’re well on your way to becoming a competitor in my cycle blogging niche!

To help you get the most out of your cycling, next Tuesday (in 7 days), I’ll be releasing a downloadable 30 page guide to cycling in London. The guide will have a ton of information for the early days of cycling, such as how to buy a bike and also more advanced discussion around things like pedal straps and tricks you won’t learn at a cycle training class. It is a culmination of everything I’ve learnt since wobbling around on a heavy mountain bike together with answers to a lot of the questions I commonly receive.

How much will it cost? I’m releasing it for free as a big thank you to everyone who joined the newsletter and helped London Cyclist reach 1000 subscribers. The only condition is you have to be subscribed to the newsletter. If you haven’t joined already then you can quickly join by entering your name and email below:

During the next 7 days building up to the big launch I’ll be releasing little snippets of content from the guide. I’m pretty excited about bringing this guide together as it’s something as a cyclist I wish someone had given me. I know that it will solve a lot of frustrations people have as well as giveaway some of the secrets you only learn after you’ve been cycling for a while.

I’m also open to suggestions for any more topics to include in the guide. If you think of something you’d like to see included then leave a comment below..

Andreas, good to see you going from strength to strength and keep up the good work.

Perhaps it could include a section on ‘Bicycling urban myths’ or ‘your real rights as a cyclist’

Things like:

It is not illegal to ride 2 abreast
What does the Green Space, the ASL, really do for you and what can you do if you see a motor vehicle ‘creep’ into it.
What to do if you do get into an accident
How to report pot holes
What do the terms ‘Fixie, Single speed, hard tail and roadie’ mean

Its late and I am waffling a bit, but perhaps there are some ideas here.

Hey Gary, running a little late to throw this into the current version but I’m sure they’ll be plenty of revisions to add it into. You are right that info such as reporting pot holes, urban myths and laws are good to explore and funnily enough I’ve got posts going up about most of those in the next 2-3 weeks!

Hey Andreas,
Congrats for your blog, i wish we had an interest in cycling like here in Madrid
nice to hear about this, i hope to see a section about how to hire a bicycle cheap, since i can’t join the new barclays system(i’m a foreigner and the casual use is not yet ready) and i would like to hire a bicycle for the same price or similar to the barclays system for this month before leaving London so i can visit all the places and move around using a bicycle. It will be great ! 😀